America is in many ways the freest country in the world and then again it isn’t.
For example: America is a country where a wealthy and famous parent of six children and grandparent of five, can, at the ripe age of 65, dominate the national conversation by announcing her transition to living publicly as a woman. Simultaneously, America can be a country where a single mother — who works full time at minimum wage — and her children can live in poverty.
A typical, traditional Zen Koan would be, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?”
Today our Zen koan to meditate upon would be: Is there a connection between these two realities, these two experiences of the reality of freedom, these two Americas … is there any “cause and effect”?